Faculty Mentors | Beckman Scholars

Beckman Faculty Mentors

**Prospective applicants**: Before applying to this program, you should either 1) already be working in one of the Beckman Scholar Faculty Mentor labs OR 2) be interested in working with one of the Beckman Scholar Faculty Mentors (or a direct collaborator) upon acceptance as a Beckman Scholar. If you are already working with a Beckman Faculty Mentor, this faculty mentor should write one of your recommendations. If you are interested in working with one of these mentors (and you are not currently in their lab), you should speak with them as soon as possible about this opportunity, and also list their name(s) on your application form when prompted to list potential mentors.

Zvonimir Dogic

Professor of Physics

Self-assembly of soft materials, active matter and out of equilibrium physics

Craig Hawker

Professor, Materials, Chemistry and Biochemistry

Director, California NanoSystems Institute

macromolecular synthesis, polymer self-assembly, and 3D printing

Denise Montell

Duggan Professor and Distinguished Professor

Combination of molecular, genetic, and state-of-the-art imaging approaches to define and solve fundamental questions in cell and developmental biology with implications for neurodegenerative disease, ischemic diseases and cancer.

Arnab Mukherjee

Assistant Professor of Biological Engineering and Chemical Engineering

Our research focuses on engineering genetic reporters for imaging what we think of as the "dark matter" of biology - living systems that cannot be readily imaged using existing reporter gene techniques.

Michelle O'Malley

Professor of Biological Engineering and of Chemical Engineering

Scholle Chair in Chemical Engineering

Vice Chair, Biological Engineering

Genetic engineering and synthetic biology of non-model microorganisms

Angela Pitenis

Assistant Professor, Materials Department

Research at the intersection of materials science, physics, chemistry, and biology, and aims to understand interfacial phenomena and energy-dissipation at the interfaces of soft materials.

Kevin Plaxco

Professor of Biological Engineering, and of Chemistry & Biochemistry, and Biomolecular Science and Engineering

In-vivo molecular measurements, anyone?

Beth Pruitt

Professor of Biological Engineering, and of Mechanical Engineering and Biomolecular Science and Engineering

Chair, Biological Engineering

Director, NSF Research Training Program in Data Driven Biology

Director, NIH T32 Training Program in Quantitative Mechanobiology

The Pruitt Lab studies how mechanics mediates biological signaling using microtechnologies for cellular mechanobiology and mechanical measurements.

M. Scott Shell

Myers Founder’s Chair in Chemical Engineering

Professor and Vice Chair for Graduate Education

We use molecular simulation and statistical mechanical theory to understand multi-scale, hierarchical interactions in complex soft materials and biomaterials

William C. Smith

Professor of Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology

Developmental genetics and morphogenesis of the primitive chordate Ciona.

Joel Rothman

Distinguished Professor

Wilcox Family Chair in Biotechnology Director, Biomolecular Science and Engineering Program

Regulation of development and differentiation; regulation of programmed cell death and cell division; mechanisms of tumorigenesis.

Dorit Hanein

Professor Hanein's research is at the interfaces between structural biology, cell biology, systems biology, and engineering science. She